The Chaos Balance

XXVIII

Nylan glanced along the road, a road that now bore a few more cart tracks and hoofprints, then overhead at a patchwork of green-blue sky and white and gray clouds that moved rapidly westward.

In the fields to the left of the road stood a small hut, surrounded by gardens, where a woman in tattered trousers and a frayed gray shirt mechanically scraped away weeds with a warren. She did not even look toward the road.

“You still think we should go to Lornth? Why?” asked Nylan, shrugging his shoulders and enjoying the freedom of not carrying Weryl.

“Call it a feeling…” This morning, she wore the carrypak that held Weryl, and the silver-haired boy was awake and quiet-watching the long-horned cattle behind the split-rail fence on the south side of the road.

In turn, Nylan had the rope that led back to the gray. He glanced over his shoulder, but the gelding followed quietly.

The ironwoods again flanked the north side of the road, and Nylan wondered how many kays they stretched. There were none on the south side. Because the peasants got rid of them immediately? Nylan would have. They couldn’t remove those on the north side because the lands belonged to the lord of Lornth, at least from what Nylan had figured out.

“You have any thoughts on why you feel Lornth is where we should go?” he pursued.

“Not really. Something tells me-it could be because one of the regents is a woman-that Lornth would be better.”

“That’s like saying Ryba would be more merciful.” Nylan laughed harshly. “Women aren’t necessarily more charitable because they’re women. You’re more charitable because you’re you.”

“That may be.” Ayrlyn shrugged. “It doesn’t change the way I feel about it.”

“I hope you’re right.” Nylan grinned at Weryl.

The boy waved both arms, jabbing one back into Ayrlyn’s ribs.

“Ooohhh…you’ve got sharp elbows, Weryl.” The healer rubbed her ribs. “We need to think about designing some sort of seat, behind the saddle, perhaps.”

“Behind?”

“It’s safer, and it would leave your arms free for a blade or a bow if we ran into brigands. Or have you forgotten how you got all chopped up.”

“No. You’re right. I’ll think about it…when we get someplace where I could make it.” Ahead, around the gentle curve in the road that arced to the right, Nylan could see another hut, similar to the last, except that no one tended the garden.

“You said you had a dream? What sort of dream?” Ayrlyn asked, easing the chestnut closer to Nylan.

“Trees-old trees, and they were struggling against something. Order and chaos were twisted together. But what was funny was that it made sense, and I don’t see how twisting order and chaos together could make any sense at all.”

“Daaa!” called Weryl, thrusting a chubby fist into the moist air.

“Daaa to you, too,” answered Nylan.

“Waaa-daaaa…”

“All right, all right,” said Ayrlyn as she reached for the water bottle. “Try not to drool all over me.”

“Good luck.” Nylan laughed.

“I’m doing this because of my great good will…and because I love you, you hardheaded smith, but don’t push it. That shoulder is getting well enough.”

“Thanks to you.”

“The order-healing helps, especially against infection, but we really need antiseptics.”

“We could distill alcohol out of wine.”

“How? Isn’t tubing and that sort of thing hard to forge?” She eased the bottle to the boy’s lips. Surprisingly, little spilled.

“You’re good at that.”

“Of course.” Ayrlyn grinned as she slipped the cork back in the bottle and stowed it in the holder.

“Hmmm…tubing would be hard, but maybe only a little has to be metal. Fire and glaze the rest. Also, we could increase the alcohol content by freezing the wine or whatever, and removing the ice. They used to make winter-wine that way.”

“I thought you’d think up a way.” Ayrlyn disengaged Weryl’s hand from the hilt of her blade. “Was there anything else about your dream?”

“There must have been. It seemed to last a long time, but the order and the chaos and the trees were all mixed together.”

“It means something,” mused Ayrlyn.

A shadow passed across the road, extending far around the curve, as a cloud scudded across the sun.

“Probably.” But what? That trees needed both order and chaos? Nylan frowned. True chaos would kill trees…wouldn’t it? And what did the trees have to do with the future-another idea pushed forward by his subconscious that indicated how mixed up he was? He pushed the ideas to the back of his mind, then glanced upward. The sky remained the same mixture of sun and clouds, but the breeze seemed cooler without the sunlight.

“How far to Lornth?” he asked after a time.

“Another five days or so.”

“Five days?” Nylan groaned.

“Or so.”

Nylan glanced at the road, at the seemingly endless range of ironwoods to his right. Maybe there were other ironwood areas. He couldn’t believe that a stretch of ironwoods that took five days to ride was worthless.

Then, a lot of Candar took some believing, starting with his own abilities and those of Ayrlyn. He shook his head, and shifted his weight in the saddle. Five more days?

Weryl gurgled happily and jabbed an elbow into Ayrlyn’s ribs again. She took his arm firmly and moved it. “No.”

Nylan could almost feel the mental force of that denial.

Weryl’s face crumpled, and he began to cry.

Ayrlyn shook her head. “He can’t be allowed to hurt people.” Then she reached down and hugged him with one arm. “It’s all right.”

The boy sobbed for a few hundred cubits more, then stared at the cattle on the south side of the road once more. But he didn’t jab Ayrlyn with his elbows again.